The article’s primary focus is Californian Steve Burd, CEO of Safeway. For Sacramento watchers, he made news during the announcement of Governor Schwarzenegger’s health plan when he stated that the Governor’s employer requirement was too low–something I agreed with him a few seats later.

Unlike some other articles, Cohn doesn’t embellish Burd’s role or his message around preventative care: he clearly reports Burd’s role in a bitter Southern California labor dispute about health care, and Burd’s overall philosophy about reducing benefits and increasing cost-sharing.

Cohn mentioned how Burd largely sat out the Clinton health care debate; Cohn doesn’t mention that Burd sat out the SB2/Prop 72 debate about employer coverage here in California–just as he was engaged in bargaining down benefits. Now he’s engaging in the public policy discourse, but the real test is coming up: those grocery workers contract are up again this year, and we’ll see Safeway’s commitment to health care to their own workers, much less universal care.